Erwin Horn

Erwin Horn
Member of the Bundestag
In office
20 October 1969 – 26 October 1998
ConstituencyGießen (1969–1983, 1987–1998)
Hesse state list (1983–1987)
Deputy Chairman of the Bundestag Defence Committee
In office
1980–1983
Personal details
Born(1929-05-02)2 May 1929
Annerod, Hesse, Germany
Died13 May 2006(2006-05-13) (aged 77)
PartySocial Democratic Party
OccupationTeacher, politician

Erwin Horn (2 May 1929 – 13 May 2006) was a German teacher and politician of the Social Democratic Party (SPD). He was a member of the Bundestag from 1969 to 1998, representing the Gießen constituency in Hesse by direct mandate for most of that period. He was deputy chairman of the Bundestag's Defence Committee from 1980 to 1983.

Early life and education

Horn was born in Annerod, a village near Gießen that is now part of Fernwald. He was a Protestant. After attending a Volksschule and an Aufbauschule, he passed his Abitur in 1948. From 1949 to 1955 he studied history, German, English, philosophy and politics, and took the state examination for teachers in 1955.

Teaching career

Horn worked as a Studienrat from 1955 to 1962. From 1962 to 1966 he was Fachleiter (subject supervisor) for social studies at the teacher training seminar (Studienseminar) in Gießen. From 1966 to 1969 he was headmaster (Oberstudiendirektor) of the Gymnasium in Nidda.

Political career

Local politics

Horn chaired the SPD sub-district (Unterbezirk) of Gießen from 1962 to 1988. He was a member of the district council (Kreistag) from 1960 to 1976.

Member of the Bundestag

Horn was elected to the Bundestag in the 1969 federal election. He won the Gießen constituency in each election from 1969 to 1994 except 1983, when he entered parliament through the SPD's Hesse state list. He did not stand in the 1998 election and left the Bundestag at the end of the 13th legislative term.

He was deputy chairman of the Defence Committee from 1980 to 1983 and the SPD's Obmann (lead member) on the committee from 1983 to 1990. From 1977 to 1988 he was a member of the executive board of the SPD parliamentary group. During the 13th legislative term he was a deputy member of the Foreign Affairs Committee and, from 1997, a deputy member of the Defence Committee.

In the Bundestag debate of 21–22 November 1983 on the deployment of American intermediate-range missiles under the NATO Double-Track Decision, Horn spoke for the SPD. He said the decision had become a source of dispute within the alliance and a burden on domestic politics in the countries where the missiles were to be stationed. He said the SPD had originally regarded the decision as a means of bringing the superpowers to negotiations on disarmament, and that the deployment would not change the global strategic balance. The Bundestag approved the deployment with the votes of the CDU/CSU and FDP.

In 1990, during the debate on the equipment of the former East German National People's Army, Horn proposed that the Bundeswehr take over all of its MiG-29 fighter aircraft and that Germany withdraw from the Jäger 90 project. He said that scrapping usable weapons while placing new arms contracts could not be justified given the level of public debt.

International assemblies

Horn was a member of the North Atlantic Assembly. He chaired its Military Committee from 1981 to 1985 and its socialist group from 1985 to 1988. He was part of the German delegation to the assembly's spring session in Paris in May 1990. He was a substitute member of the German delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe from 1981 to 1984 and from 1995 to 1999, and a deputy member of the Assembly of the Western European Union.

Conviction

In 1990 a Schöffengericht (lay-judge court) in Cologne fined Horn 24,000 DM for false unsworn testimony and attempted obstruction of prosecution. The court found that he had made false statements in a traffic case against a master mason from Bornheim. Horn had been a passenger in the man's car in April 1988 when it damaged another vehicle while leaving a parking space in central Cologne and drove away. The driver was convicted of leaving the scene of an accident.

Death

Horn died on 13 May 2006.

Honours

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 "MdB-Biographien der 13. Wahlperiode: Biographie des MdB Erwin Horn, SPD". webarchiv.bundestag.de (in German). Deutscher Bundestag. Retrieved 23 October 2026.
  2. 1 2 "Mitglieder des Deutschen Bundestages A–Z" (PDF). kgparl.de (in German). Kommission für Geschichte des Parlamentarismus und der politischen Parteien. 2018. Retrieved 23 October 2026.
  3. ↑ Beier, Gerhard (1984). Arbeiterbewegung in Hessen. Zur Geschichte der hessischen Arbeiterbewegung durch einhundertfünfzig Jahre (1834–1984) [The Workers' Movement in Hesse: On the History of the Hessian Workers' Movement through One Hundred and Fifty Years (1834–1984)] (in German). Frankfurt am Main: Insel. p. 453. ISBN 3-458-14213-4.
  4. 1 2 3 4 Vierhaus, Rudolf; Herbst, Ludolf, eds. (2002). Biographisches Handbuch der Mitglieder des Deutschen Bundestages 1949–2002 (in German). Vol. 1: A–M. Bruno Jahn (contributor). Munich: K. G. Saur. p. 363. ISBN 3-598-23782-0.
  5. 1 2 "Erwin Horn, MdB" (in German). SPD-Bundestagsfraktion. Retrieved 23 October 2026.
  6. ↑ Tammen, Marejke Talea (17 November 2023). "22. November 1983: Deutscher Bundestag hält am Nato-Doppelbeschluss fest". bundestag.de (in German). Deutscher Bundestag. Retrieved 23 October 2026.
  7. ↑ "Plenarprotokoll 10/36" (PDF). dserver.bundestag.de (in German). Deutscher Bundestag. 22 November 1983. Retrieved 23 October 2026.
  8. ↑ "Die Erblast der NVA: sowjetische MiG-29 und ihre Piloten". Die Tageszeitung (in German). 1990. Retrieved 23 October 2026.
  9. ↑ "Drucksache 11/7578: Unterrichtung durch die Delegation der Bundesrepublik Deutschland in der Nordatlantischen Versammlung über die Frühjahrstagung vom 11. bis 15. Mai 1990 in Paris" (PDF). dserver.bundestag.de (in German). Deutscher Bundestag. 17 July 1990. Retrieved 23 October 2026.
  10. ↑ "Mr Erwin HORN (Germany)". pace.coe.int. Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. Retrieved 23 October 2026.
  11. ↑ "SPD-Abgeordneter muß blechen". Die Tageszeitung (in German). dpa. 1990. Retrieved 23 October 2026.
  12. ↑ "Horn, Erwin". Hessische Biografie (in German). Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS). 7 November 2020. Retrieved 23 October 2026.